Macaulay Culkin: Free-Wheeling

You've seen him with both hands on either side of his face....screaming! Of course this was for the poster when he was a little kid starring in Home Alone back in 1990. Macaulay Culkin was a child-actor phenomenon. Everybody wanted the bright, funny kid for their film. Mac (as his pals call him) was married at only 18 to a young actress but it didn't last. He was just too young and admits he wanted away from family squabbles and into his own, independent world. Blond-haired, blue-eyed actor Macaulay has gone through some big changes in his 24 years. Now, he has his own place in New York, dates "That 70's Show" actress Mila Kunis and is jumping back into acting with others of his generation in the controversial teen comedy Saved.

When we talked with Mac (and he loves to talk!), he was wearing a wrinkled shirt over a t-shirt and one of the cute tiny ties that the movie's producer Michael Stipe had handed out to his young cast. His eyes get all big and sparkly when he talks. The actor talked about his acting siblings, fun on set, doing extensive research into the world of Christian born-agains and he learned all about free-wheeling in the film as a smart, independent young man who happens to be in a wheel chair but scores a romance with hot Eva Amurri.

TeenHollywood: Tell us about the research you did for this?

Mac: Thankfully I'm someone who loves rehearsal and research. (Director/writer) Brian Dannelly is a big research guy, almost to a kind of silly extent. He sent us stacks and stacks of things, like him in an Internet chatroom with other Christians, talking about Christianity. He sent this whole I-M thing where he's talking to a pastor, pages and pages. He sent something to me and Eva about how paraplegics make love. It's not like it's even addressed in the movie (no sex scenes), he just wanted us to not worry about the characters, they have a healthy relationship. It was cool. We went to Christian rallies and rock concerts, I went to a big one at Edison Field, there were 40,000 born again Christians and they were all blonde.

TeenHollywood: Well you would fit in...

Mac: Apparently! And there were a couple of these Goth Christians too, it was crazy, with black hair, dark eyeliner and "God Rocks" tattooed on the back of their hands. I read the script about all this New Age-like Christian stuff and I didn't realize to what an extent it existed until you actually see it first hand and you want to stay true to who they are and what they believe in.

TeenHollywood: So you saw a lot of religious passion?

Mac: Yeah. You see 14-year-old girls you know, and they're not passionate about anything besides maybe Britney Spears and there you see 20,000 14-year-old girls who are totally passionate about their faith, and they know what they believe, and there's something really really beautiful in that.

TeenHollywood: Tell us more about this concert.

Mac: There's the U-2 sound-alike Christian band, and the Radiohead sound-alike Christian band, and they're all very uplifting music. The pastor gets up there and he's quoting Pink and Madonna more than the Bible, I mean it's crazy. It's crazy! I remember walking out and there were all these people picketing, there were kind of these Fundamentalist Christians saying this is wrong and this movement is wrong, and I remember thinking at this moment, "Wow, they're picketing each other?" What makes us think they're not going to picket this movie?

TeenHollywood: How did you get used to the wheelchair?

Mac: I had them send me a wheelchair a couple of months in advance. I have a bachelor pad, I have no rugs or furniture or carpets or anything, so I have hardwood floors and actually it became a popular piece of furniture in my house. Every time I was out of it, someone was in it. It's fun, actually, but only knowing you can get out of it at any time of course. I got pretty good at it, you just have to get your upper body in shape -- you're using muscles you don't even realize you have actually. I got off the plane in Vancouver (where Saved was shot), before I even dropped off my bags from the airport, I went in and got a wheelchair fitted.

TeenHollywood: Didn't someone coach you?

Mac: Yeah. They hooked me up with this research assistant, a quadriplegic named Brad and I remember when we met, and we were just messing around and he said, "Hey you're pretty good in that thing," and I realized I was there three or four hours and that the whole time I was there, I was never out of that chair. At that point it would have been weird. They hooked me up with this other guy, 20 years old, I think he had only been in the chair for six months so he was learning. He showed me how to get out of bed and into the chair, how to get off the floor and into your bed, and how to get out of a car and into a chair because those things are really really difficult.

TeenHollywood: Were you ever worried that you wouldn't do wheelchair bound people justice in the movie?

Mac: I asked them is there anything specific that you want me to make sure that I do right and they said, "Shift! You have to shift (move) in your chair!" They explained to me that the muscles in your legs have atrophied and it's basically just bone, vein, skin. And so, they're kind of just sitting and they're pinching these veins off. Their legs are falling asleep but they can't feel it because they have no feeling down there. So, they have to shift for a while every 10 to 15 minutes for the rest of their lives. It was so small and almost wouldn't be picked up on camera, but they wanted to make sure because this is something like breathing.

TeenHollywood: We hear that you and the cast did some fun, silly stuff like throwing things off the hotel balconies, like bad dumplings or whatever? Did you participate?

Mac: (grinning) Oh god, of course, yeah, yeah. Some of us had just met. Some of us knew each other, like me and Jena (Malone) went to school together, the Professional Children's School, not professional hardly children and not a school, but aside from that it was truly fantastic. We all first met, and it's one of those bonding moments and we thought let's do silly stuff together. I definitely walked in on it and went "All right, fine," but it was one of those things that gets you all friendly, on good terms, gets you all laughing, getting each other's sense of humor, and we just had a great group of people, it really felt like camp. All six of us were kind of in this hotel, we were within a floor of each other. We had a potluck dinner and things like that, it was really silly, but it was fun. We'd go karaokeing too.

TeenHollywood: How often do you see your siblings?

Mac: I see them a good amount. Rory was actually out here and doing a film at the same time. He was working most of the time so it wasn't like we were hanging out every day. We had a friend who played Halo, one of those video games, and we would get together every Sunday, me and Rory, we were pretty good. They just split us up after awhile because we were too good.

TeenHollywood: You're the oldest. Are you protective over them?

Mac: Definitely, but you know they're so smart, and I don't feel like I have to give them advice or I have to protect them or anything like that. They know what they're doing, they've seen everything. I mean they were there the whole time, and so they know the ups and downs.

TeenHollywood: You probably don't sit around talking about acting.

Mac: What we're doing is probably the 15th most important thing on the list that we do. It's like if you're a computer programmer and so's your brother and you sit down programming computers all day long and the last thing that you want to do when you come home is talk about computer programming. I love them, they're smart, they don't need advice, they don't need me for anything. They've got their own thing going on and that's cool.

TeenHollywood: Are you still the godfather to Michael Jackson's children?

Mac: That's not a title like that gets taken away from you. I actually have not seen them in a while. It's all kind of crazy right now and so I kind of take a step back for a while and let him do his thing, and be supportive from afar, but there's not much I really can do at this point. I have not spoken to him for about six or eight months. Like I said, it's a bit of a circus and I try to avoid it.

TeenHollywood: You and Mila are still seeing each other? Are you leading a quiet life?

Mac: Today is the second anniversary for me and my girlfriend and I'm spending it with you guys. Yeah, that's right, feel bad for me. Actually, I lead a relatively simple life. I enjoy my dog and my girlfriend and hang out at home, I'm not really a big club person or bar person. I'm relatively simple, this is the crazy stuff, when I go home I want to settle down.

TeenHollywood: What kind of music do you like?

Mac: I listen to all kinds of things, from Busta Rhymes to Beethoven. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of pop music, surprisingly enough. I'm more into the guitar-driven stuff going on right now, I like the Strokes of course, the White Stripes. He's a god. You can hear my karaoke repertoire, all of my stuff is pre-1968, I'll do like "My Way," Frank Sinatra not the Elvis one, I've got "Mac the Knife" but that's obvious because it comes with the name, I'll do like "Que Sera Sera" and I'll do like "When I'm 64" by the Beatles. That's me, I like all kinds of stuff.

TeenHollywood: What about movies, what was the last movie you liked?

Mac: My girlfriend has really bad taste in movies and music, but I'll tell it to her face, believe me. She'll take me to all of these chick flicks and I'm just so not into it. I liked "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and I love anything Wes Anderson does, I think he's amazing. I love his characters.

TeenHollywood: What else is coming up for you?

Mac: I'm looking at projects, but I'm in no hurry, I'm not like one of those people who needs validation by having 10 projects a year to make myself feel better as a creative person. I'm really content on doing one really special unique project a year and just putting that out there and seeing how people react to it, so we'll see.

TeenHollywood: Do you still keep in touch with your Home Alone director Chris Columbus?

Mac: No, but we keep bumping into each other. When I was doing a play in London, he came, and he didn't tell me he was coming. I was walking out the back stage, and boom there's Chris, and I hadn't seen him since I was 11 or 12 or something, and I was 20 at the time. I went up to him and the first thing I said to him was "You know, you're a lot shorter than I remember." Before he was a big guy, and now I'm taller than him!

***

Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.